DOVER — What information does the public have a right to know about a person's criminal record?

That question lies at the heart of ongoing debate around the state's annulment law, which is once again the focus of legislation in Concord. A bill scheduled to reach the New Hampshire House of Representatives this month would reverse some of the recent changes to the state's annulment law.

The law has also been in the news this year following the arrest of a former St. Thomas Aquinas music teacher on child pornography charges.

Daryl Robertson is facing seven felony charges alleging possession of child pornography. The charges come five years after he was arrested for a charge of sexual assault involving a student.

According to a report by the Portsmouth Herald, Greenland Police found a disk at Robertson's former Post Road residence that contained “explicit images of minors engaged in sexual activity.” The newspaper reports Robertson had been working as a landscaper and music tutor. The case raises anew the question of whether someone who has been granted an annulment should be entitled to entirely erase the markers of a criminal history.

In 2009, Robertson was given a suspended jail sentence for the assault of a former student. He was later acquitted of the misdemeanor sexual assault charge.

The acquittal gave him the right to petition for post-conviction relief, and the annulment was granted.

However, Strafford County Attorney Thomas Velardi points out that an annulment does not erase all records from history. Some of the facts of a case such as Robertson's still exist in the public domain, Velardi said, even after an annulment is granted.

Velardi wrestled with how much information to release about the case when Robertson applied for a teaching job in Massachusetts in 2009. Velardi forwarded on some police records, which remained public, despite the annulment.

Robertson's case was a rare instance in which Velardi objected to a request for an annulment. Velardi said he knew Robertson intended to work with children in the future, and even though Robertson was found not guilty, Velardi said he felt the public had a right to know about the events that prompted his case.

“The facts of the case are not annulled,” he said, explaining that an annulment erases a conviction, but not the evidence in the case. “The facts always exist.”

Annulment law timeline

Lawmakers formed a study committee in 2010 to consider changes to the annulment law. The law previously worked by sealing any documents related to an annulment, meaning that a criminal record was essentially erased once an annulment was approved.

A law passed the following year — House Bill 82 — removed civil penalties that previously faced reporters who divulged information about someone's annulment records.

In 2012, HB 1168 went further, setting out in clear language that annulment records should be logged in a court system. The bill “required the records of all criminal offenses which have been annulled to be identified as annulled.”

It also established that “the person whose record is annulled shall be treated in all respects as if he or she had never been arrested, convicted or sentenced, except that, upon conviction of any crime committed after the order of annulment has been entered, the prior conviction may be considered by the court in determining the sentence to be imposed ...”

This year, three bills were floated in the House of Representatives to further amend the annulment law. A bill sponsored by Rep. Joel Winters ultimately won support in the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, picking up 17-0 vote in favor of recommending for passage.

The bill would leave in place the changes that shield members of the media from penalties for reporting on annulments. But it would once again seal the records associated with someone's criminal record after an annulment is granted. This would prevent annulled records from showing up on a background check.

“I think there were some unintended consequences to the legislation that was passed last year,” said Winters, a Nashua Democrat.

The bill was due out of the committee by March 7, and it has a House floor date of Wednesday, March 13. Winters said he expects strong support, given the favorable committee vote.

“This bill would bring things back in line with the way they've previously been treated,” he said, “and make it easier for people who've made mistakes in the past to go before a judge and have that removed so they can move on ...”

The digital age

Even if an annulment completely erases one's court record, digital footprints are sometimes still left behind.

According to Ted Kirkpatrick, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and Director of Justiceworks, there's no surefire way to erase one's criminal history in the digital age.

Before the Internet, accessing records involved researching where someone was adjudicated and physically obtaining information. In the near future, court records might be accessible from the comfort of one's living room, he said.

“There's a lack of clarity about what this means in the digital age,” he said.

Though most people might expect that all justice systems are integrated and connected and a change made somewhere along the line will change in the entire system, it could very well be that that initial arrest exists on an information system somewhere, Kirkpatrick said.

“Even in the case of an annulment, sometimes the lack of complete integration in our justice systems doesn't delete all the information everywhere,” he said. The existence of a historical record, digital or otherwise, is where confusion over how to interpret the annulment law lies and what the meaning of an annulment really is in 2013 and beyond.

“That's the point of contention I think. Even if you have an annulment it doesn't erase the historical record. That's what the public and lawmakers are in a current debate about,” he said.

Kirkpatrick said he tells students at UNH who have been arrested that while what happens within the university is protected by law as far as a student's record, police arrests are public record.

“You're never sure whether there's a trace of that that remains on some information system somewhere,” Kirkpatrick said.